Leaving Childhood: The Golden Compass & I
I used to be extremely fond of rereading my favorite books. I still am. A few years ago, however, my pleasure in rereading was overcome by impatience: get to the point already, get to the end! I traced this problem to an out-of-date prescription for my reading glasses. Unfortunately, even with a new prescription, the ennui persists. On the bright side, I am blazing through my TBR pile.
And on the inside, well. There are some books that I don’t need to reread. I’ve read them enough in the past that I no longer need light by which to read them. These books could in fact double as sources of light: they shape how I see the world.
Three of these books are The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass, by Philip Pullman, collectively known as His Dark Materials.
Note: In the UK, The Golden Compass is known by its original title, Northern Lights.
His Dark Materials is enjoying a moment. HBO picked it up for a serial adaptation. For a while, an alethiometer billboard gleamed thirty feet high above Sunset Boulevard. There’s Funko Pops over at Hot Topic and a running recap column in the AV Club. Well, HBO, the AV Club, and the Funko Pops with their ghastly staring eyes are all late to the party, because this is my house.
If you thought I was possessive about Little Women, you ain’t seen nothing yet…
His Dark Materials opens in a world parallel to our own, focusing on a girl named Lyra who runs half-wild around the colleges of Oxford. Everywhere Lyra goes, her daemon familiar, Pantalaimon, is nearby. Oxford’s Scholars are in uproar about a mysterious substance called “Dust,” but Lyra doesn’t care—until her best friend vanishes without a trace, and Lyra goes on a quest to rescue him.
The HBO adaptation is very good, really, especially the second season. Excellent cast, good production values. I like how they flesh out the roles of Marisa Coulter and Lee Scoresby, and Simone Kirby perfectly captures one of my all-time favorite characters, Mary Malone. The one— shall we say— glaring weakness is the CGI daemons. Put simply, there ain’t enough of them, and daemons are a little important to the thematic unity of the entire damn series.
Dæmon is the proper spelling, of course, but not all computers have the “æ” symbol.
Simone Kirby (L, as Mary Malone) and Dafne Keen (as Lyra Silvertongue) explore the mysteries of the universe.
Pullman wisely takes his time dispensing information on what a daemon is. Gradually, we learn that every human in this world has one. Every daemon is animal-shaped (misprints from an early edition of Northern Lights notwithstanding). Daemons talk. They offer help, companionship and the occasional scolding to their humans. Okay, so they’re magical animal sidekicks. What else?
Children’s daemons change shape with impulse or will, but adults’ daemons are “settled” in one form. Now, this seems like a loss. Who wouldn’t cherish whimsy, not to mention the possibility of flight?
But in the first book, Lyra meets an old sailor— and his seagull-daemon— who reassure her. It’ll be worth it, says the sailor, to know who you really are. What kind of person you are.
Now imagine those ideas reaching a lonely girl in the seventh grade— just about Lyra’s age.
See, my memories of His Dark Materials are inextricable from that time period. That’s the age when I started tying my hair back in the tightest braids and ponytails I could manage. When I switched from the plaid uniform skirts to navy blue uniform trousers (dear god, what if someone saw my thighs? Or realized that I hadn’t shaved my calves?). I did not like what was happening to me at that age. I did not want to grow up.
Why not? Oh, haven’t you heard?
“Never-neverland, for once you have found your way there, you can never, never grow old.” (Peter Pan.)
“Toyland, Toyland, once you pass its borders, you can never return again.” (Babes in Toyland.)
“And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3.)
The messaging is pervasive in our society. Childhood is the era of clarity, wonderment, delight. To grow up is to lose magic. To grow up is to lose your way. Peter Pan can flit gaily among the skies of Neverland forever, but Wendy must resign herself to turning gray amid the grime of London.(1) And to a kid who had enough difficulty navigating middle school, the thought of having to grow up was a terrible one. What if I lost my imagination, the one thing that made me really special?
And then I start reading these books.
And in between the chases and escapes, the cold expanses of the North and the slow secrets of the alethiometer, Pullman comes up to us with the idea. Hey, it’s better to be an adult than to be a little kid. Yeah, little kids can run wild— but they’re vulnerable. Adults know who they really are, and in that knowledge lies strength.
And Pullman just developed this theme further, with my aforementioned favorite, Mary Malone. Sometimes when I read the books, I imagine her as a young woman; sometimes she’s closer to fifty than forty. At any age, Malone thinks of herself as “slow and plodding,” no sort of adventurer at all. But on the course of her journey, she discovers depths of playfulness and courage within herself. She reawakens to her enormous capacity to think, to feel, to love—one greater than what she had when she was a shy child, praying to a child’s God.
All these themes: honoring the coming-of-age process; the elevation of knowledge, wisdom, and art to a universal vocation; the importance of free will; the life of the inner soul; these themes have shaped me as a person.
And some of them, I’ve developed into my own theses: Pullman is a staunch atheist, and although I absorbed that dimension of His Dark Materials, my spirituality has grown beyond it.
And then there’s the question— would these themes stick with me so, would they have transformed me, if it weren’t for Pullman’s skill for adventure and intrigue? Without the initial imaginative leap of “Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening hall…” Prompting me to ask, what is a daemon? What is this book about?
And the answer is, it’s about entering the world. It’s about growing up. It’s kind of about everything.
And HBO… l do look forward to seeing how the third season will approach the monumental scale and imagination of the third volume. Maybe they will even tackle the inconsistencies within Pullman’s texts. (Authority is bad, until there’s twenty pages of book left and one angel needs to swoop in and tell everyone what to do, brooking no disagreement. Um…)
But do the people at HBO really understand His Dark Materials? At times I feel like they are shifting the story to be more, well, Game of Thrones-ian. They’re establishing several different factions all working up towards one big battle… you know, that’s fine, but in Pullman’s vision, there are only two factions, only one question that really matters. Are you for Freedom, or for Authority? Yes, the characters kill the Christian version of God, several times over, just to be sure, (2) but it’s not about using violence to overpower the people who are wrong. It’s about understanding and connection, relating, teaching. It’s about growing up.
But, hey. You’ve got to take adaptations, even the very best, with a proverbial grain of salt. The series is better than the 2007 film by Chris Weitz; then again, there are things I miss about Chris Weitz’ vision (another excellent cast, and really good daemons). It’s not like the HBO series was ever going to replace the books in my heart. Books are my preferred medium, and besides, the books reached me at precisely the right wrinkle in time for me to absorb their message.
I said earlier that these books double as sources of light. With books and stories that matter to me this much, it’s fun (nay, necessary, good, AND fun) to revisit them periodically. Revisiting Compass shows me how I’ve changed since the last time I read it. And for that reason alone, I’m grateful to the HBO series. It may not be perfect, but it gives me an excuse to return to Lyra’s Oxford. I will take that opportunity, and bring along as many new travelers as I can.
(1) This is a shallow but common reading of the text of Peter Pan; JM Barrie himself was wiser than that. But I’m speaking about the predominant image of eternal, carefree youth.
(2) Incidentally, when I put it that baldly, I start wondering what if the characters from The Righteous Gemstones were to stumble their way into His Dark Materials… but no, if Pullman were dead, he’d be spinning in his grave at the very notion…